Road Trip Through History: The Putnam Museum

My Own True Love and I make a point of visiting local historical museums whenever we’re on the road.* What a museum choses to focus on can tell you how a community or a region defines itself. Even a museum that seems at first glance to be an uncurated (or as autocorrect intriguingly suggests, uncharted)…

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Poland’s “May Coup”–1926

These days I am deep in the history of the years between the two world wars. Some of it was familiar at the point that I began, at least in broad outlines. But the fact of the matter is that a whole lot of history happened across Europe in those twenty-one years that never popped…

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Women in the Soviet Army in World War II? Let Me Count the Ways

Recently a fascinating story about a real life woman warrior appeared in the Wall Street Journal. To summarize the story: Ukranian-born Olha Tverdokhlibova fought against the Germans in World War Two. She was a skilled markswoman, served as a scout behind German lines, fought her way to Berlin with the Red Army, and was highly…

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